You know how when you’re a kid there’s this one dish someone in your family makes that’s a treat and that you absolutely love and eat a ton of when they finally make it?

For me that was my mother’s lasagne. She made the best lasagne in the world.  The thing is, she rarely made them, which made it that much more special when she did.  She would cook what seemed like a million sheets of pasta and spread them out around the kitchen, then carefully arrange the lasagne in layers with tomato sauce, ragu, and béchamel in between. She would top the whole thing off with extra béchamel and lots of parmesan cheese and then bake it in the oven until it was golden on top and bubbling on the sides.

I would sit in front of the oven and watch the parmesan melt and go soft and goopy and then golden and crisp.  I would call for my mother to come and take it out of the oven, and I would follow her closely as she took the tray out of the oven and carried it to the dining table steaming hot.

And then I had to wait until it cooled down just enough, and let me tell you that was the hardest part.

Then my mom would slice into the lasagna and serve everyone and then we could start eating and oh boy oh boy oh boy! It was the best thing you could ever imagine.

I’ve tried making my mother’s lasagna several times, but they never turn out exactly like hers used to. This ragu does get them pretty close though, as this is her original recipe—the one she used in the lasagne as well as on its own with pasta.

I made a whole pot for R. and I to have with some pasta we bought while we were in Italy.  It’s a lovely Fall dish—meaty and filling, and the longer you let it cook down for, the deeper and more intense the flavors become.

This recipe makes one large pot of ragu, but this sauce can be stored in the freezer for a couple of weeks and tastes wonderful reheated. If you think you will need less, the recipe can be easily halved. Using wine in this recipe is optional, and you can easily do without (although you might need to add some extra tomatoes), but fresh rosemary is really what makes this dish special, so please don’t be tempted to skip it. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under italian, meat, fish, poultry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.